Friday night and
what better way to spend it than at the Baillieston SNP
Burns supper. Smashing speech from Roseanna Cunninghamwith the Immortal
Memory, talking about what Burns would make of modern
Scotland and the caustic remarks he would probably be saying
about the Scottish parliament and politics in general, that
he would be opposed to the war, outspoken about the asylum
system we have imposed on us by the UK Border Agency - it's
no way to treat people; Burns would be writing and
protesting, he'd be scribing lines about Dungavel, he'd be
puncturing the pomposity of arrogant and xenophobic
politicians, and he'd be callingon us all to
remember humanity, our responsibility to treat each other as
human beings (a tad ironic that he was a step or two away
from driving slaves himself). Funny thing about that
speech about Burns is I always quote a bit of Burns when I'm
at Dungavel, it just seems to fit right, somehow.

Nicola Sturgeon
who toasted Scotland(oh yes, a high-powered event this
one) she talked about Scotland's aspirations, our
aspirations for Scotland, and how far we have come in the
past few years. I couldn't help but contrast our great
good fortune in coming this far on our road to freedom
without the bloodshed and fear that so marked the journey of
our friends in Northern Ireland - probably as a result of my
visit to Stormont earlier in the week where I met some
exceptional people who are trying to heal their country and
find a way forward while having to deal with the lack of
trust that remains. It's not that they distrust each
other, it's more that they still can't trust each other
completely, but they deal with that and they keep moving the
process onwards, they disagree on issues, disagree quite
strongly sometimes, and they're united on some issues, but
each and every one of them wants to make it a better place
to live, a better society, a better future for their
children. They disagree about the eventual destination
but they are all genuinely wanting to make it better and I
wish them all the good fortune they can find along the way,
it's a hard and uneven road with a destination yet to be
decided but with politicians of decency, compassion and
honour treading that road there must be hope that it will be
fruitful.

The other
speakers were Duncan Ross (toast to lassies) and Anne
McLaughlin did the reply but I didn't get to hear them as I
had to leave to attend my brother's40th birthday party
- I've often wondered why my mother left those two decades
between him being born and me being born - honest ...

Equal
opportunities committee this week had round-table sessions
on the economic
impact of migration and trafficking. We had as our
guests Gordon Smail, Portfolio Manager (Local Government),
Audit Scotland; Mhoraig Green, Policy Officer, Cosla’s
Strategic Migration Partnership; Chris Oswald, Head of
Policy & Parliamentary Affairs, Equality and Human Rights
Commission; Dave Moxham, Deputy General Secretary, STUC;
Elaine Dougall, Regional Women & Equalities Organiser, Unite
the Union; Inspector Brian Gibson, and Superintendent David
Stewart, ACPOS; Jane Renton, HM Assistant Chief Inspector,
HMIE; Heather Rolfe, Research Fellow, the National Institute
of Economic and Social Research; Seonad Forbes, Project
Coordinator, New Migrants Action Project, Positive Action in
Housing; and Cathie Cowan, Director, South-East Glasgow
Community Health Care and Partnership. It was a very
interesting session, boosting my reasoning for a
welfare-basedapproach to immigration and asylum
rather than the enforcer-based approach that we've seen from
UKBA in response to the calls of politicians for asylum
'quotas' and repatriations. I'm hoping for an enquiry
that will bust a lot of the myths that get peddled about
asylum seekers by some media outlets and, more disturbingly,
by some unprincipled politicians.

Education
committee was an informal briefing to discuss the new
Children's hearing's Bill with Adam Ingram MSP, Minister for
Children and Early Years.
It's been 46 years since Kilbrandon reported, times move on,
and the much-vaunted Scottish Children's Hearings system
which has been praised around the world and has added
greatly to the global sum of human understanding of the
issues is being re-examined and refreshed. We're
blowing a few cobwebs out the windows and we're doing a bit
of dusting and hoovering. We have to be careful not to
throw the valuables out with the rubbish, right enough, but
we've got to clean those jewels and get them sparkling and
make sure we're doing the very best we can for all of
Scotland's children.

And so
to the chamber where the Tobacco and Primary Medical
Services Bill (I don't know who names these things) was
passed on Wednesday - another piece of SNP legislation on
the books. As George Foulkes might say, we're making
Scotland better again - on purpose! Cigarettes will no
longer be displayed in shops, cigarette advertising will be
gone, and tobacco will be denormalised as a product for
sale. I think that that's a good day's work!

After all that
exertion (oh, go on, give me a little leeway), I was keen to
get the glad-rags on and dash up to theParliament Burn's
Club Burn's Supper (try saying that in a hurry). I
have to compliment the chef and all of the staff hard at
work while we MSPs were enjoying ourselves; the food was
delicious, served with some class - and I got to stay until
the end this time! The politicians speaking were Mike
Russell, Jackson Carlaw (who
always reminds me ofErnst Stavro Blofeld for some reason)
and Elaine Murray- but nobody wants to hear about
politicians, do they? So the rest of the entertainment
will be the better part to remember. Campbell Gunn,
political editor of the Sunday Post and long-time folk
singer (of course, Campbell will protest that he is too
young to be a long-timer at anything, but I've seen the
photographs) sang a pro-Jacobite
song then an anti-Jacobite
song, demonstratingthe intriguing paradox of Burns and
the way in which Burns changed and perhaps had to change.
RobGobsonMSP joined in the
singing as well, but he's a politician so we'll skip by him
and get to the real star of the evening. Willie Anderson,
one ofthe security staff at Parliament who
do such an excellent job of keeping the building and all of
the people who work in it safe without being intrusive in
any way, did some recitationsincluding theSelkirk grace and
the henpecked husband - a brave thing for Willie to do,
considering his wife was sitting close by. We haven't
seen him since ...

I'm dashing off
just now, I've got a load of stuff to get ready for visits
in Hamilton tomorrow, so I've run out of time to tell you
about the newspaper debate this morning, my oral question
this afternoon and my speech in the Skills debate.
I'll fill you in on all of that next week but if you really
can't wait, the Official Report of today's proceedings will
be up online tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. Here's the
link to where it will appear -
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/index.htm

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